Wednesday, May 18, 2016

San Francisco: "Car hating capital of the Bay Area"

Question: A few days ago, a friend took me to the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park for my 66th birthday. I live in Santa Cruz and don't drive in the city very much. After driving around for about 20 minutes, I found an empty slot in a long line of cars on JFK Drive and noted that the slot had "parking" written on the pavement so I parked there.

When I returned, I had received 2 parking tickets for $192 each. Upon closer observation, I noticed that under the car in front of me on the pavement was written "no" as in no parking. I have pictures if it would help. In retrospect it sounds naive to think they would write "parking" on the pavement, but shouldn't the "no" and "parking" be close together?

I would like to protest receiving two tickets for the same offense and ask for leniency because of my birthday and being from out of town, but after trying every day to access my citations on the SFMTA website, it always displays "plate not found." How long does it take to post tickets on the payment site?

George Hoffer

Santa Cruz

Answer: It can take several weeks, but you must pay or protest the citation by the due date on the ticket or you could get hit with late fees and collections fees. Do not pay if you wish to appeal. You can also request an appearance with a judge and that's where the photos might help reduce $384 in fines on a birthday outing. Google SFMTA and parking citations. One ticket, OK. But two, ouch. I'm rooting for you, George.

Question: I drive to work in the car hating capital of the Bay Area---San Francisco---and have begun to see bike riders on some of the busiest streets of the city, where it is either a traffic hazard or a death wish to be on a bike. Great examples are Van Ness Avenue, Lombard Street toward the Golden Gate Bridge, 19th Avenue, etc. Are there any restrictions on streets bikes can use?

Jason LemanSan FranciscoAnswer: Very few. Bikes are allowed on urban streets, and there are no restrictions on the streets you mentioned.

Austin rejects Uber and Lyft

Pouty, whiney, spoiled-bratism is not nice coming from a four-year-old, but it's grotesque when it comes from billion-dollar corporate elites like Uber and Lyft.

The two internet-based ride-hiring brats call themselves "ride-sharing" companies, but that's a deceit, for they don't share anything—their business model relies on folks needing a ride to hire a driver through the corporations' apps. With the bulk of the fare going to out-of-town corporate hedge funders.

The two outfits have swaggered into cities all across our country, insisting that they're innovative, tech-driven geniuses. As such, they consider themselves above the fusty old laws that other transportation companies, like taxis, follow. So Uber and Lyft have made it a corporate policy to throw hissy fits when cities—from Los Angeles to Atlanta, Houston to Portland—have dared even to propose that they obey rules to protect customers and drivers.

The latest tantrum from the California giants happened in Austin, when the city council there adopted a few modest, perfectly reasonable rules, despite the screams of PR flacks from both outfits. The petulant duo then used fibs and high-pressure tactics to get enough signatures on petitions to force a special election to overturn the council's action. Naturally, being brats, they gave the city an ultimatum—"Vote our way or we will leave town"—and assumed that Austin's tech-savvy voters would flock to do whatever the popular ride-sharing service wanted.

But they picked the wrong city. First, they ran a campaign of blatant lies, as though Austinites wouldn't question them. Then, they shoved a sickening level of corporate cash into their campaign, apparently thinking that the sheer tonnage of ads would win the day for them.

However, the slicks from California turned out to be uber-goobers. Despite spending $9 million (more than the combined spending of all city council candidates in the past decade), they went down, 56-to-44 percent.

Since they didn't win their campaign, Uber and Lyft have now left town in a huff leaving their 10,000 Austin workers/drivers behind to fend for themselves. Since their workers are considered contract employees, there will be no severance package or unemployment benefits for them.

This is part of the new "gig economy"—the latest corporate buzz-phrase from Silicon Valley to Wall Street. CEOs are hailing a Brave New Workplace in which we lucky worker bees no longer have to be stuck in traditional jobs with traditional hours, traditional middle-class pay scales, traditional benefits, traditional job security, and all those other fusty "traditionals" of the old workplace, In fact, in the gig economy, you're not even bothered with having a workplace. Rather, you'll be "liberated" to work in a series of short-term jobs in many places, always being on-call through a mobile app on your smart phone or through a temp agency. How exciting is that?

Well, they use "exciting" in the sense of distressing and nerve-wracking. The gig economy means you're on your own—you're not an employee, but an "independent contractor," with no rights and no union. You might have lots of calls to work this week, but there'll be many weeks with no calls. Don't get sick, injured or wreck your car, for no health care or workers' comp are provided. A pension? Your retirement plan is called "adios chump."

This "alternative work arrangement" is not a futuristic concept—it's already here and spreading fast. And it's not just ride-hiring gigs either. Some 16 percent of U.S. workers are now in this on-call, temporary, part-time, low-pay, you're-on-your-own economy, up from only 10 percent a decade ago. Corporate chieftains (backed by the economists and politicians they purchase) are creating what they call a workforce of non-employees for one reason: Greed. It directly transfers more money and power from workaday families into the coffers of moneyed elites.

Their gig economy is aptly named, for "gigs" are crude four-hook fishing devices that are dragged by commercial fleets through schools of fish to impale them, haul them in, and cash in on the pain. And if you don't think the gig economy is painful, why don't you ask the 10,000 Uber and Lyft workers in Austin how they feel about it?An earlier post on Uber and Lyft here.